Wests Tigers five-eighth Mitchell Moses says the club can no longer use youth and inexperience as excuses as they attempt to end their five-year hiatus from finals footy.

Moses – who turns 23 later this year – is part of a talented, albeit very young spine that includes fullback James Tedesco (24) and halfback Luke Brooks (22).

The talented trio each have more than 50 games of experience under their belts, and according to Moses, it’s time for the Tigers to become contenders again.

“We’re not using the excuse that we’re too young anymore,” he said while on All Stars duty ahead of the game in Newcastle on Friday night.

“We’ve got a really good 17 that if we can keep on the park, we’ll go alright this year. We’re going to take a lot out of last year and learn a lot from what happened last year.”

The Tigers surprised many to finish within one win of a finals berth in 2016, but it’s their Round 26 shellacking at the hands of the Canberra Raiders that cuts deep.

A monster crowd of 18,634 packed into Leichhardt Oval to see their side take on a formidable Raiders outfit knowing that a win would be enough for the black and golds to sneak into the top eight.

However, those hopes were quickly extinguished as the Green Machine raced in five first-half tries on their way to a thumping 52-10 win condemning the Tigers to ninth spot on the ladder, just one point behind the Titans.

“We didn’t turn up to that last game against Canberra at all so we’re definitely going to learn from that,” Moses said.

"It was heartbreaking. To go so close and to turn in a performance like that was pretty embarrassing. We got a massive crowd out there that day and to show them the quality of footy that we played was not acceptable. We’ll look to go one better next year and hopefully make the semis.

“We got so close and didn’t come up with it so we’ll definitely use it as motivation. We definitely don’t want to be watching footy in September this year.”

Before Moses can worry about that, the talented playmaker has bigger fish to fry with a showdown against his childhood-hero Johnathan Thurston looming on Friday night.

The 22-year-old enjoyed his first win over the legendary Cowboys halfback last season and wasn’t afraid to admit that he was trying to copy parts of Thurston’s game.

“We versed him last year at Leichhardt and we got one up on him. I always looked up to him when I was younger and I always try to base my game around him at the moment so it’s exciting,” Moses said.

"The toughness that he plays with [is what stands out]. He’s always digging right into the line and playing as late as he can, and he’s always picking the right option.

“I think he plays with a lot of patience and he never goes away from something. If something doesn’t work the first time, he’s always trying to go back to it and pull it off, and I think that’s a big thing.”

Wests Tigers five-eighth Mitchell Moses says the club can no longer use youth and inexperience as excuses as they attempt to end their five-year hiatus from finals footy.

Moses – who turns 23 later this year – is part of a talented, albeit very young spine that includes fullback James Tedesco (24) and halfback Luke Brooks (22).

The talented trio each have more than 50 games of experience under their belts, and according to Moses, it’s time for the Tigers to become contenders again.

“We’re not using the excuse that we’re too young anymore,” he said while on All Stars duty ahead of the game in Newcastle on Friday night.

“We’ve got a really good 17 that if we can keep on the park, we’ll go alright this year. We’re going to take a lot out of last year and learn a lot from what happened last year.”

The Tigers surprised many to finish within one win of a finals berth in 2016, but it’s their Round 26 shellacking at the hands of the Canberra Raiders that cuts deep.

A monster crowd of 18,634 packed into Leichhardt Oval to see their side take on a formidable Raiders outfit knowing that a win would be enough for the black and golds to sneak into the top eight.

However, those hopes were quickly extinguished as the Green Machine raced in five first-half tries on their way to a thumping 52-10 win condemning the Tigers to ninth spot on the ladder, just one point behind the Titans.

“We didn’t turn up to that last game against Canberra at all so we’re definitely going to learn from that,” Moses said.

"It was heartbreaking. To go so close and to turn in a performance like that was pretty embarrassing. We got a massive crowd out there that day and to show them the quality of footy that we played was not acceptable. We’ll look to go one better next year and hopefully make the semis.

“We got so close and didn’t come up with it so we’ll definitely use it as motivation. We definitely don’t want to be watching footy in September this year.”

Before Moses can worry about that, the talented playmaker has bigger fish to fry with a showdown against his childhood-hero Johnathan Thurston looming on Friday night.

The 22-year-old enjoyed his first win over the legendary Cowboys halfback last season and wasn’t afraid to admit that he was trying to copy parts of Thurston’s game.

“We versed him last year at Leichhardt and we got one up on him. I always looked up to him when I was younger and I always try to base my game around him at the moment so it’s exciting,” Moses said.

"The toughness that he plays with [is what stands out]. He’s always digging right into the line and playing as late as he can, and he’s always picking the right option.

“I think he plays with a lot of patience and he never goes away from something. If something doesn’t work the first time, he’s always trying to go back to it and pull it off, and I think that’s a big thing.”

How about we just get ourselves into a position where we don’t have to talk about there being no excuses, like the good teams don’t feel the need to. That would be nice.

In fairness, at this time of year the sports writers are coming up with crappy NRL stories on a daily basis that mostly lack any real substance. Usually these are based on 2-3 quotes from a player who has responded to a direct question.

Having said that……still only 23yo…This bloke has his best footy ahead of him for sure.

The potential is there to make the 8, we have enough skill across the park to do it. The real test is going to be our defence as per usual. If we leak as many points as last year then we’re no chance. Improve it by 10% or more and we’ll be right IMO.

When you look at our roster we have more game breakers than most clubs. We could easy end up with three SOO reps and that in itself would be amazing considering we are still not a top 8 team.

Of course there lays the problem, we have the class in about 6 players, than it drops away. We need to get like Melbourne and be able to get the bulk of the squad up to NRL standard week in and week out

There is not the slightest doubt we have players that are amongst the best in their positions(Woods Moses Tedesco)but the problem lies in the fact that some of the players making up the balance are probably the worst in their positions.No names just about everyone knows who the poor players are and yet they will be picked each week.
I hope this year our defence improves or basically no matter how good our top players are they wont be able to carry the regular anchors that get picked

Wests Tigers five-eighth Mitchell Moses says the club can no longer use youth and inexperience as excuses as they attempt to end their five-year hiatus from finals footy.

Moses – who turns 23 later this year – is part of a talented, albeit very young spine that includes fullback James Tedesco (24) and halfback Luke Brooks (22).

The talented trio each have more than 50 games of experience under their belts, and according to Moses, it’s time for the Tigers to become contenders again.

“We’re not using the excuse that we’re too young anymore,” he said while on All Stars duty ahead of the game in Newcastle on Friday night.

“We’ve got a really good 17 that if we can keep on the park, we’ll go alright this year. We’re going to take a lot out of last year and learn a lot from what happened last year.”

The Tigers surprised many to finish within one win of a finals berth in 2016, but it’s their Round 26 shellacking at the hands of the Canberra Raiders that cuts deep.

A monster crowd of 18,634 packed into Leichhardt Oval to see their side take on a formidable Raiders outfit knowing that a win would be enough for the black and golds to sneak into the top eight.

However, those hopes were quickly extinguished as the Green Machine raced in five first-half tries on their way to a thumping 52-10 win condemning the Tigers to ninth spot on the ladder, just one point behind the Titans.

“We didn’t turn up to that last game against Canberra at all so we’re definitely going to learn from that,” Moses said.

"It was heartbreaking. To go so close and to turn in a performance like that was pretty embarrassing. We got a massive crowd out there that day and to show them the quality of footy that we played was not acceptable. We’ll look to go one better next year and hopefully make the semis.

“We got so close and didn’t come up with it so we’ll definitely use it as motivation. We definitely don’t want to be watching footy in September this year.”

Before Moses can worry about that, the talented playmaker has bigger fish to fry with a showdown against his childhood-hero Johnathan Thurston looming on Friday night.

The 22-year-old enjoyed his first win over the legendary Cowboys halfback last season and wasn’t afraid to admit that he was trying to copy parts of Thurston’s game.

“We versed him last year at Leichhardt and we got one up on him. I always looked up to him when I was younger and I always try to base my game around him at the moment so it’s exciting,” Moses said.

"The toughness that he plays with [is what stands out]. He’s always digging right into the line and playing as late as he can, and he’s always picking the right option.

“I think he plays with a lot of patience and he never goes away from something. If something doesn’t work the first time, he’s always trying to go back to it and pull it off, and I think that’s a big thing.”

When you look at our roster we have more game breakers than most clubs. We could easy end up with three SOO reps and that in itself would be amazing considering we are still not a top 8 team.

Of course there lays the problem, we have the class in about 6 players, than it drops away. We need to get like Melbourne and be able to get the bulk of the squad up to NRL standard week in and week out

That says a lot about some of the others that we have here taking up space.